LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice: Making the Write Choice

Anyone who’s been following all the drama and intrigue of office suite software development news for the past several years will know that LibreOffice has basically risen from the ashes of OpenOffice, as developers from the latter decided to go off to start their own project (while using the open-source code from the work they’d done on OpenOffice up to that point).

For a while it looked like OpenOffice was doomed, with Apache announcing that their development team was dwindling and unable to keep up with updates addressing everything from UI improvements to security vulnerabilities.

But after record-low download numbers in 2017, OpenOffice seems to have bounced back a bit, with a big update triggering people to take an interest again. In this article we compare the two Office suites to figure out which one wins.

Features

Both OpenOffice and LibreOffice look much the same from the outset, with vintage-style interfaces that reject Microsoft’s tab-based look. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll see the differences. Handily, LibreOffice keeps track of your word and character account dynamically as you write, which is great for those working with word limits. (In OpenOffice you need to click “Tools -> Word Count.”)

OpenOffice launches with a sidebar for various font and paragraph options, which is theoretically useful, except that many of the options are just repeats of what’s already in the toolbar across the top of the window. You can enable this sidebar in LibreOffice as well, but I think it’s a little superfluous.

Font embedding is a nice addition in LibreOffice, too, which ensures that whatever fonts you use in your document get displayed correctly in other word processing software that opens the document. On a related note, LibreOffice allows you to save in the .docx format, while OpenOffice doesn’t. (Both let you save in the OpenDocument format and most of Microsoft’s proprietary formats.)

Both LibreOffice and OpenOffice use open-source document formats and have exactly the same programs with exactly the same names contained therein. Namely:

In short, they look very similar, but LibreOffice has more quality-of-life features resulting from more consistent development of the software.

Security and Stability

LibreOffice gets updated much more than OpenOffice, thanks to a bigger team and more resources. A factor in this could also be that there’s a license in place, and that means the LibreOffice lot can help themselves to the code from OpenOffice but not the other way round.

The rarity of updates with OpenOffice also means they’re not quite as on the ball in terms of security, and the team often take a long time to address the latest security vulnerabilities and bugs. A major bug in the macOS version that causes crashes when making diagrams in Calc is yet to be fixed, while Apache seems to be constantly scrambling to iron out security issues.

OpenOffice is hanging in there, but you get the sense that it’s struggling to keep its head above the water.

Conclusion

LibreOffice has all the advantages in this one, though there are a few users who’ve reported features bugging out in it, only for them to work fine in OpenOffice. It’s good to have a backup office suite, in other words, though we think there are better options than OpenOffice out there. Check out our list of free alternatives to Microsoft Office to get an idea!

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4 comments

dragonmouthsays

“LibreOffice has all the advantages in this one, though there are a few users who’ve reported features bugging out in it, only for them to work fine in OpenOffice.” Is it possible that it is particular hardware that is causing the “features bugging out” rather than the software?

I have always found both interfaces so old and ugly compared for example to the Microsoft and google office suites. I would like to understand for what reason those who are used to the Microsoft Office 2016 would want to use something that looks like windows 98, i really don’t understand the lack of design polishing. For my part i chose the Google suite which suits my needs and looks like something made in 2018.

LibreOffice seems to get worse with each new update. They seem to have too many volunteers who do what they want to do, not what needs to be done. Users who complain about bugs basically get told that they may or may not get fixed, depending on whether a volunteer steps forward. I keep hoping for more “adult supervision” “quality control”, etc. For example, why are they still using Java? Apparently no one else does, so many people either don’t have Java Runtime Environment or have uninstalled it. Then on a rare occasion they discover they need it for a specific LO function, then LO help won’t even give you a straight answer on where to install it.

It’s just nutty, every time I have a problem I have to spend an hour trying to fix what should take 1 minute! For example, LO Writer keeps changing text in my word docs (ex: it might change “spend” to spending”) even though I have turned off auto-spell and grammar check. I then have to manually proof the doc to catch all the errors made BY LO! There are a lot of things where so should be able to right-click to find what you need, but it isn’t there. Even the LO update page is confusing, it offers too many choices to the average person who just wants to update the current version.

Another thing lacking in LO is templates. Guess what, there are 100 times as many templates in Open Office that will work in LibreOffice, but LO doesn’t link to them, even though they work in LO. I think too many people are uncritical of LO’s failures.

The reason I stick with it is that I feel it’s less of a risk in terms of hackers trying to inject viruses/macros, I think they focus on MS Office. Also, I don’t want Micro$oft and Google knowing everything about me and then “monetizing” it (selling my info to advertisers), so I try to use open source software, like LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.

JRE is installed automatically along with the rest of LibreOffice. You should have no need to install it afterwards. Unless you uninstalled it manually.

“LO Writer keeps changing text in my word docs (ex: it might change “spend” to spending”) even though I have turned off auto-spell and grammar check.” Interesting. I’ve been a LibreOffice user (Windows and Linux versions) since its StarOffice days and I have never encountered that problem. Granted, I’m only one user and cannot generalize based on my experiences but so are you.

“Even the LO update page is confusing, ” There is no need to go to the LibreOffice site to get check for an update. If you click on the HELP drop-down menu, there is a ‘Check for Updates’ entry. LibreOffice also notifies you with a ‘Update Available’ message if there an update. You can also run the LOManager program which will apply the update. In none of the three options are there ‘too many choices’ for the user.

“Another thing lacking in LO is templates.” Google is your friend. Search for ‘LibreOffice templates’ and you will find at least 5 sites that have hundreds of LO templates.

“there are 100 times as many templates in Open Office that will work in LibreOffice, but LO doesn’t link to them” Why should LibreOffice link to a competitor’s products? FYI, even though OO and LO are forks of the same code, their developers ARE basically competitors. Although that may not last too long. Apache may be closing down the OpenOffice project.

“The reason I stick with it is that I feel it’s less of a risk in terms of hackers trying to inject viruses/macros” Security by obscurity is not a safe policy. :-)